I didn’t see in the article an explanation of how the bones fossilized. It seems like a terrible spot for that to occur, but I don’t really know much about the process. I assume the animal was buried in sediment at some point?
So I’m no dolphin osteologist so can someone tell me how “cage-teeth” would be distinct from any more snaggle-tooth type of mouth? It seems interesting that they’d have any evidence to push them to that conclusion in the first place.
It had widely splayed teeth which are thought to have clasped around fish, like a wide basket, which is unusual because other ancient dolphins in the area usually used their teeth to strike prey,” said University of Otago paleontologist Shane Meekin.
I’m having difficulty imagining how it would actually function, but i believe it means more like to trap smaller prey species inside the mouth and then consume whole. Almost like a super early evolution that could lead to baleen plates in filter feeding whales, although I don’t know if those are actual modified teeth or not.
That’s how I want to go out. In millions of years, I want scientists of whatever species that replaces us to find me encased in amber doing the do and say, “This guy fucked.” in a peer reviewed academic journal.
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